


A Little Bit of Flour, A Pinch or Two of Love

by counterheist



Category: Hetalia: Axis Powers
Genre: M/M, Romano’s superior culinary arts, Schmoop, Tickling, spain is a sneaky bastard
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-02-14
Updated: 2013-02-14
Packaged: 2017-12-06 10:29:58
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,622
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/734647
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/counterheist/pseuds/counterheist
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Baking is more difficult than it appears.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Little Bit of Flour, A Pinch or Two of Love

**Author's Note:**

  * For [mimblewimble@tumblr](https://archiveofourown.org/gifts?recipient=mimblewimble%40tumblr).



> For [spamanosecretvalentine 2012](http://spamano-secretvalentine.tumblr.com/post/43107683298/valentine-for-mim). Request was spamano being derpy, messing up while trying to bake a cake.

Sometimes, on Saturdays, Romano gets a little lonely, not that he’d ever say. Sometimes, on Saturdays, Romano makes a half-hearted effort at cleaning up his house, gets tired of it, and leaves the job half-done, worse than when he’d started, and then he feels a little down. Sometimes, on Saturdays, Romano looks at the sunshine outside and wishes it would just go and match his feelings and he huffs and he puffs and he blows his self-esteem all the way right down.

Sometimes, on Saturdays, Spain comes to visit.

He always rings the doorbell four times, and if Romano doesn’t answer by then, starts knocking to the rhythm of whatever song he’d been listening to on the way over to Romano’s house. Today Romano was sitting in the pile of his kitchen, between bags of rusted old shit he doesn’t need, and cheap new shit that’s going to break after two uses anyway, and the kitchen’s on the other side from the front door, so he doesn’t make it in time. Today’s front door serenade sounds like it could quite possibly be _Tonight I’m Lovin’ You_ , and when Romano finally manages to yank his door open he finds Spain with closed eyes, whispering the chorus to himself with such earnest fervor that Romano doesn’t even put up a protest at Spain ruining his afternoon.

Not that his afternoon was going all that well before Spain got there, and not that it hasn’t improved now that Spain is here, at Romano’s house, but those are details. And Romano knows that Spain’s too dumb for the details so he graciously keeps them out of their interactions.

Spain continues singing to himself while he walks past Romano, steps through the front room and makes a beeline for the kitchen. It’s the kind of thing Romano normally does in the reverse situation, except exchange singing with complaining. Usually Spain heads for the nearest couch because, as he says, long trips make him tired. Wary, Romano follows Spain abuzz with pursed lips and wounded pride because the asshole isn’t letting Romano take his bag or his coat, and how is Romano supposed to be a good host to some goddamned ungrateful guest like that?

“I have a surprise for you,” Spain says, almost tripping over a twenty-year-old toaster that’s hidden behind a pile of two-hundred-year-old cookbooks, “that’s why!”

“You’re excused, then,” Romano says, “But don’t do it again.”

The nod and the laugh from Spain are mildly reassuring, even though they aren’t, not really, because Spain hasn’t actually promised anything. But Romano’s willing to let him off easy, because from underneath his coat, Spain pulls out a worn cloth bag.

And from out of the bag, patched so many times that it barely has any of its original fabric left, Spain pulls out a bag of flour and a package of eggs, and what he assures Romano are three cups of sugar, already measured out into a plastic zip bag, which is incredibly weird, why couldn’t you just bring a container like a normal person, but I didn’t have enough room!

They bicker for precisely two minutes; or, Romano bickers and Spain moves around him, clearing a little space on a counter here and a shelf there. Eventually the bickering melts into as normal conversation as they ever have, and Romano bustles here and there as well, grabbing bowls and pans and fancy molds even though Spain hasn’t said what he’s doing here, at Romano’s house, with all the ingredients for baking but no occasion for it.

“I’ll tell you when it’s done,” Spain promises.

“You’d better,” Romano grumbles, “I was really busy before you came waltzing in like a great big oaf. I was doing…stuff. Important stuff!”

“Eh?” Spain pauses, “Should I come back later?”

Romano’s backtracking comes fast and furious and somehow ends with him making coffee for the both of them and letting Spain have the best chair at the table, the one that’s never been broken ever, never at all, and he feels a little like he’s missed something as he looks at Spain while Spain explains that they’re going to be baking a cake together.

“Why?”

“I said,” Spain waggles his finger too close in front of Romano’s face, “I’ll tell you when we’re done. Also I brought aprons!”

The aprons are hideous.

The aprons are covered with lacy frills, and they’re too small and tight, and they don’t look like they’d be able to keep flour off of Romano’s very nice clothes even if they tried. Apparently they were a present from France.

Romano puts his in one of the ‘To Be Set On Fire What Was I Thinking When I Bought This’ bags and fetches his own goddamned apron from the pantry. It is green and red and white, which are very good colors, and it’s big enough to protect him from any sartorial harm. By the time he joins Spain at the sink, he’s feeling really smug. If most of that stems out of the sight of Spain looking really stupid from the back, so stupid, really stupid with his lacy little apron curling around his sides and framing his jean-covered ass, that’s all Romano’s little secret.

“Budge over,” he says, rolling up his sleeves so he can wash his hands. He doesn’t know what Spain has in mind today, but he could go for a Cassata alla Siciliana and he probably has the ingredients for it if Spain didn’t bring them.

“Oh,” Spain says.

“Oh?”

“Oh.”

It’s oh, indeed, because Spain hadn’t been taking up all the room in front of the sink because he’s just lazy like that, even when he’s washing his hands. He’d been separating whites from yolks already, and they hadn’t even agreed on what kind of cake yet, dammit, and now there’s soap and the hard water from the pipes Romano’s been too lazy to get fixed, and maybe one or two flecks of rust in both little bowls Spain had been using.

They stare at each other for a moment. For a second in time.

“Cake doesn’t need eggs,” Spain is still holding a spoon in midair, “does it?”

“Your stupid face doesn’t need eggs,” Romano breathes, “That wasn’t my fault.”

Letting the contaminated eggs flow down the sink, hopefully to a better life, Spain turns to face Romano, hands on his hips. “I think it was, Roma.”

“It wasn’t.”

“It was!”

Things break down when Romano starts making faces, all of which Spain deserves, but then Spain breaks out his special weapon, and the tickling lasts until Romano’s oven starts smoking. Between shaky breaths and residual laughter Romano limps across the floor, littered still with centuries of hoarded crap – he swears he’s going to get rid of it all this time – determined to find out what Spain did wrong this time.

Shifting slightly, Spain says something about how everybody knows you have to turn the oven on before you put the cake in, you have to let it heat up first, and Romano has no idea how Spain could dick up pressing a few buttons. He finds out soon enough and the staggering idiocy would be more endearing if they weren’t in danger of being blown to shreds. This time’s diversion involves a lot less tickling and a lot more of Romano shouting about putting flour in ovens why would you even?

“Preheating!”

“ ** _Fiery death_** , Spain.”

“I wanted to keep it warm.”

“I want to keep _you_ warm.”

Things devolve from there. Maybe if they weren’t immortal the things would devolve into shouting either of them actually meant, or finger pointing, or doors slamming, but they are so it doesn’t and fifteen minutes later they are tickling again, on the floor, and it’s so undignified it’s painful, Romano thinks, but then he finds that spot behind Spain’s left ear again and it feels a lot better now that he’s winning.

“Why are you here?!”

“Ahaaha, n-not that spot, ha, I-I’ll never tell!” Spain manages through his giggles.

“Why!” Romano demands again.

Defenses as weak as ever, Spain grins before ducking his head out of Romano’s reach and twisting himself over to a space on the floor, next to the refrigerator, that is mostly free of the detritus of Romano’s life. There is still a metal spatula poking into his back, though. As he retrieves it and throws it towards a different pile he tells the ceiling, “because I wanted to eat cake with you today.”

Romano pauses, still on his hands and knees. “That’s it?”

“That’s it.”

“You’re so dumb.”

Spain smiles.

“You forgot to bring vanilla.”

And bites his lower lip.

“And butter.”

Raises his right arm.

“Although you didn’t need to bring anything.” Romano’s on a roll now, a full-on lecture. “Because I have everything anyone would ever need to bake the most delicious and complicated cake in the world, and all the other ones, and I bet I’m better at it than you are, too, and—ah!”

And grabs Romano by the shoulder and drags him down to the floor. “You’re right,” Spain says, picking at a loose thread from his apron. “I don’t think we can make a cake here anymore.”

Smugness returning, Romano nods, and wonders if he can start tickling Spain again without him noticing. Probably. Spain doesn’t notice much.

“I think you’re just going to have to take me out to have one.”

Romano nods again and— wait.

( _They agree that the café’s cake isn’t as good as the one they would have made, but it’s not bad, and Romano doesn’t even say anything about Spain holding his hand underneath the table the entire time because he is gracious and he has cake._ )


End file.
